Blogfest 2009

I would be able to fall asleep in five minutes.

This is a hard question. Some of the options I considered:

Ability to Fly: Handy skill, plus it means the ability to avoid long security lines at the airport and having to take off your shoes. The downside is I don’t look that great in the Spandex suit that is required, and it would really screw with my hair that barely behaves as it is.

Ability to Read Minds: Love the idea of knowing what people are really thinking, but major downside is I might not really want to know what they think of me. Or even worse yet, what if they aren’t thinking about me at all?

Set Things on Fire: While it sounds really good to be able to make something burst into flames just by looking at it, I can see some major negatives. One of them being what if you were having a really lousy day and then the next thing you know you’ve got people running around in flames everywhere? After a few times I’m betting no one would hang out with you.

Bend Metal With Your Mind: Really? How often do you need bent metal? It’s not like I want to make a car or am trapped frequently in collapsed metal buildings.

After all this consideration I’ve decided to go with the ability to travel back in time. Think of all the times something came flying out of your mouth and you thought “ACK! I want to suck that back in.” Or all the times you trip and fall down in front of everyone or realize that after talking to your crush you realize you have a giant gob of lunch stuck in your teeth. If you could rewind time you could stop those things from happening.

Oh, that’s easy! I would FLY!

Maybe the ability to fly. It would be cool to soar into picturesquely poofy clouds and burst out the other side like some sort of airborne Disney character. But I’m kind of scared of heights, plus I’m such a klutz that I’d most likely careen into trees and crash onto roofs.

I also think it would be cool to be able to talk to animals like Daine in Tamora Pierce’s Wild Magic, but I have the sneaking suspicion that that power would get annoying pretty fast. I can already guess what goes through my cat’s mind, “Hate you, hate you, hate you, eat you, hate you …”

Invisibility is an obvious “no” for me. (See klutz comment above.) I have enough trouble not tripping over my own feet when I can see them. I also have to say no to fire power and ice power. I like to be temperature regulated. Telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition all seem like they’d cause serious migraines. Telekinesis would be nice. I’d like to be able to feed myself some Raisinets without walking to the kitchen or to move the car to a better parking spot with just the power of my mind…

If I truly had the choice of superpowers, though, I’d want some sort of power (either a special healing power or simply ridiculous good luck) to keep the people I love healthy and happy. I think that’s really the only super power worth having.

I hate to fly, so flying is out. I always though Aquaman’s power to talk to fish was sort of suspect. However, I would love to have the power to manipulate time, i.e., to slow or speed up time, even skip back in time.